Only an NHL team can follow the Vegas model and not the Edmonton Oilers

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We compare building each current competitor with Edmonton Oilers, the focal point of this blog. Although each team had its own wrinkles on how to assemble things, we found a common theme – everyone found important core players in rounds 2-7 of the draft, the area oilers were long gone. Collectively, the comparisons underscore how vulnerable the locals are.

So now we have our fourth team, the Golden Knights of Vegas and we can throw all those models out the window. Vegans are a completely different beast, with a completely foreign approach to all other NHL teams in the Salary Cap Era.

So foreign, of course, I’m going to take our standard format – 1st round picks | Rounds 2-7 picks Entry Level Free Agents | Unrestricted Free Agents | Trades – and turn it upside down, and then add completely new categories to the top of the pile. Because where these other clubs spent a decade building their competitors, the Vegas Golden Knights built them mostly in a single day!

June 21, 2017 is the day NHL’s first new franchise in 17 years landed on the field with a powerful splash. Taking full advantage of the most favorable terms ever provided to the NHL expansion team, then-GM George McPhee came away with a huge distance of useful, long-term NHLs.

Expansion draft

Of the 25 players currently part of the Golden Knights, less than ten were not directly selected in that expansion draft. An agreement has been reached to select three-time Stanley Cup champion franchise goalie Mark-Andre Fleury from the Pittsburgh Penguins; In fact, the Penguins had to pick up the pot with a second round pick, taking the cunning George McAfee an experienced stopper to help solve the salary cap problem in Pittsburgh. The newcomers caught two players on their shutdown defense pair, Nate Schmidt and Bryden McNab (see: Pick up on this post for a general extension). Wild Bill Carlson and Jonathan Marchesalt found a pair of scoring forwards that gave the club instant scoring power. Somehow McPhee affected both That’s it Acquisitions as additional assets.